March 7, 2008
BUDGET BASICS
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Kink and the protesting posse |
Housing Works clients and staff made dozens of visits to the offices of State elected officials this week to urge them to support aspects of Governor Eliot Spitzer's FY 2008-2009 budget and include items in the Senate and Assembly budgets that would provide crucial support for poor people living with HIV/AIDS.
As the Update reported earlier this year, there are lots of wins in Spitzer's budget, including a rate increase for the state share of AIDS Adult Day Health Care (ADHC) centers and restoration of SSI "invisibility" to families who receive state enhanced rental assistance and have a child with a disability. Spitzer also wants to lift the 20-year freeze on Article 31 licenses. Doing so would address the appalling dearth of mental heath services for people with HIV/AIDS.
But there are items that are not in Spitzer's budget that should be included in the State's final 2009 budget bill, including:
- A $4 million/year rate increase for COBRA case management, which provides essential psychosocial support to people living with HIV/AIDS. Studies have shown that case management is one of the two most important reasons people stay in consistent medical care (the other is housing). Nonetheless, COBRA rates haven't increased in a decade. Advocates say the rate increase could be cost neutral with reforms to the COBRA system and dozens of AIDS organizations are pushing for it. The rate increase is expected to be in the Assembly's one-house budget and the Senate should put it in theirs.
- An increase in the state's basic need public assistance grant. New York State hasn't increased its basic welfare grant in a shocking 18 years. New York is now 36th in the nation in terms of what states spend on basic public assistance. Sixty percent of indigent New Yorkers living with HIV/AIDS depend on basic public assistance to survive. A basic need grant increase is also expected be in the Assembly's one-house budget, and the Senate ought to put it in theirs as well in order to force the issue with Spitzer
- a statewide expansion of HIV/AIDS Services Administration (HASA) benefits. Only a handful of cities outside of New York make HASA benefits, which include rental, transportation and nutritional assistance, available to their residents.
- A statewide HASA would also end New York City's wrongheaded denial of benefits to asymptomatic people with HIV.
AIDS advocates are also urging legislators to get behind legislation introduced by Assembly Member Deborah Glick and Senator Tom Duane (A. 5473/ S. 2890) to cap rents for poor people with AIDS receiving state rental assistance at 30 percent. Thanks to a vindictive Pataki policy, HASA is the only rental assistance program in the state that doesn't cap recipient rent shares at 30 percent of income, allowing recipients to keep only $330/month, with the rest going to rent. That means HASA recipients must survive on $11 per day without the help available in supportive housing.
A demo diffused
Housing Works clients and staff also paid an impromptu visit to the offices of State Senate Minority Leader Malcolm Smith to protest the poaching of former Housing Works legislative counsel and policy mastermind Michael Kink. After duping Kink into a final "goodbye" meeting, five Housing Works folk chained themselves together and handcuffed themselves to available office furniture, chanting to agog staffers, "Take a hike, give back Mike!" Initially caught off-guard, Kink masterfully diffused the raucous protest by introducing members of Smith's staff one-by-one to the activists, who were easily appeased. "Thanks, guys," Kink said.